[apologies - needed to shorten the long title - Ed]
hi, I am the Mother of a child who was diagnosed with Ebsteins at Great Ormond Street 27 years ago.

Hi, Nattikins here mother of 27 year old Laura who has Ebsteins, Wolff Parkinson, narrow pulmonary artery.  She was diagnosed at Great Ormond Street the day after her birth when at the “check” they heard a funny heart sound – they didn’t know what it was so sent her, with a police escort, up the M1 to London.  She was sent back 3 days later with a diagnosis and an appointment to attend at GOS.  That’s where her diagnosis was explained to us and we were told by our GP when we asked for a prognosis that “she could not run round the playground or she could not run a 4 minute mile” it would just be wait and see.  Anyway she was very well throughout her childhood and didn’t need any medication or interventions (apart from developing Migraine at 7).  At 20 she started to have rapid heart beat due to the extra electrical pulse in her heart and she was admitted to The Heart Hospital in London for a “simple, quick ablation to put it right”.  Unfortunately ablating this extra pulse put her into complete heart block and a pacemaker was installed.  She found this very traumatic and hard to deal with, particularly when she went for checks of the pacemaker and felt they were able to control her heart with an external magnet but she has just about got over this.  However some 6 months ago she experienced a “black dot” in her right eye – she went to the Optician and her Doctor who told her to go to the Local Eye Dept of the Hospital which she did – she was told her vision field was affected but to go back in a week.  She duly went back and was told it was still affected and was given a leaflet on Detached Retina, they also kept asking to give her an MRI scan which of course she had to explain to all of them that she could not have because of the pacemaker.  They therefore decided to make an appt to do a CT Scan.  Luckily, oh so luckily, my elder Daughter is a Doctor (currently a Registrar Radiologist) and when I told her the situation she immediately said that I should contact our Heart Specialist as it could be a clot from the hole in her heart.  I did so immediately and she was seen in January this year.  He was most concerned and arranged for a “Contrast/Bubble Test” and a letter was written to the Eye Consultant regarding his concerns and asking him to see her before her next heart appointment on 17 March.  She duly went for the bubble test and was told by the Physician who carried it out that they had never had a more positive result and it was also showing bleeps some 10 minutes after the injection of the solution – the Physician was concerned and contaced her Heart Specialist immediately.  She finally managed to get an appt to see someone at the Eye Department on the 16th March – they kept offering her appts in ~April and May, and all that was done was yet another vision test when she was told that her sight in her right eye was 60% compared to 77% and 67% on previous occasions.  She was not seen by the Consultant and was just told she had a “defective retina”.

We duly saw the Heart Specialist on the 17th when it was decided she needs to have an operation to close the hole in her heart as soon as possible as it is obviously throwing off clots and presumably has resulted in retinal emobolisms – this means she won’t recover the loss of sight and is very lucky really that they ended up in her eye and not giving her a stroke in her brain – however we still have no diagnosis from an Eye Consultant.  I am concerned and so are my daughters about the hole being closed because of how Laura will cope and if her heart will enlarge too much but they have said they will try on the table and see how it affects her.  She has a 3 year old daughter so is very concerned as is understable.

I am just so angry without my elder daughter having had medical training and suggesting that I contact the Heart Consultant this would still be going on as neither Laura nor myself would have necessarily mentioned this eye problem to him at her appointment – not putting the heart and eye together.  I, myself, had a stroke at 46 so know the devastation this can cause.  I just feel totally let down by the Eye Department and wonder if anyone else has had such an apalling experience.

I also wonder if  any other adult has had to have their hole closed due to the leakage of blood and clots and how they are coping?

Thanks for reading